ANNIVERSARY!
ALMOST! MAYBE! After intricate calculations based on
insufficient data from the years of pre-war and post-war weekly meetings
that led up to 40 years of monthly ones, Rob Hansen and Pat McMurray are
practically certain that this month's London Circle gathering will be
number 1,300 (plus or minus 10) and should therefore be celebrated in
some extraordinary fashion, i.e. alcohol. Voice of Arthur C. Clarke:
'Fools! I'm not celebrating until meeting 1,301.'

Steve
Baxter boosts this issue's 'All Knowledge Is Contained In
Fanzines' quotient: 'Any Simpsons fans caught in this winter's NHS hell
will surely be comforted by the fact that the Department of Health's
official website is, inevitably, www.doh.gov.uk.'

Arthur
C. Clarke's breathing difficulties (owing to post-polio
syndrome) inspired tasteful sf imagery in a 2 Feb Washington Post
piece by Pamela Constable: 'But after every few breaths, Sir Arthur C.
Clarke makes a slow whooshing sound as if he were cruising through
space, a bit like those fantastic structures that waltzed among the
stars in one of the greatest science fiction films.' [cj] The Blue
Danube Whoosh?

Mary
Gentle, asked about Gollancz's paradoxical press pack which
calls her Ash the biggest fantasy ever published in a single
volume but encloses proof volume 1 (of 2) only, snickered and muttered
darkly that 'One day there really should be a companion volume: The
Making of ASH. In which many paradoxes would be explained....'

A.E.van
Vogt (1912-2000) died on 26 January, after years of fading
health and Alzheimer's. He was 87. His Campbellian Golden Age fame was
founded on a burst of popular, hugely influential magazine work from
1939 ('Black Destroyer') to the end of the 40s, most of it eventually
reworked at novel length. Idiosyncratic theories of writing, like his
new concept or plot turn every 800 words, led to high-speed, dreamlike
narratives that had almost hypnotic force despite not always making
sense. Slan, his first novel and the archetypal sf
persecuted-minority story, was widely adopted as a metaphor for fandom.
Van Vogt continued to write with diminishing energy into the 1980s, and
received the SFWA Grand Master accolade far too late, in 1996. 'There,'
as his own aliens would surely say, 'went the author who ruled the
sevagram.'

Kurt
Vonnegut had a nasty fright at the end of January, when a fire
at his house led to hospital treatment for smoke inhalation: it's said
that he fannishly tried to rescue papers rather than running for it,
until extricated by a more sensible neighbour. Despite some early
'critical but stable' reports, he's apparently in good shape.

Rumblings  Boston in 2004 is a Worldcon bid from
New England's MCFI, who ran Noreascons 2 and 3. Presupp membership $12,
'friends' $75. Contact PO Box 1010, Framingham, MA 01701, USA. 
Chicon 2000 Hugo nomination forms are out; deadline 31 March.
Ansible failed to be outraged when the ballot cover art
'endorsed' – that is, almost invisibly featured – such likely nominees
as A Civil Campaign and Locus. But wouldn't it be nice
to celebrate the New Year's First Digit with some fresh, vibrant names
in boring old categories like fanwriter?

Publishers
and Sinners.Dorling Kindersley embarrassedly
confessed a likely £25 million loss for the second half of 1999,
thanks to over-optimistic investment in the UK Phantom Menace
book franchise: 13 million printed but only 3 million sold. [PB/TC]
'They didn't lose money on my book!' cried John Clute. 
SFX subscribers assumed the February cover was a rare and
perhaps immensely valuable misprint, lacking all the usual teaser
headlines. Deputy editor Guy Haley explains: 'Nah, this is our
new look for subscription copies only – all subscribers get a lovely
SFX cover picture unadulterated by our wibble. Only we forgot to
announce it anywhere. Oops!' Editor Dave Golder gloated
uncontrollably: 'They're already changing hands for a fiver in
specialist shops.'

Awards.Philip K. Dick Award shortlist, for best US paperback-original
sf: Code of Conduct by Kristine Smith, Not of Woman Born
ed Constance Ash, Tower of Dreams by Jamil Nasir, Typhon's
Children by Toni Anzetti, Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter,
and When We Were Real by William Barton. Winner announced 21
April. [GVG]  Whitbread Award: after hot debate this went
to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, with J.K. Rowling's
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban winning the children's
division. [JR] It emerged that the jury was split 4-5 on making the
latter the overall winner, whereupon Anthony Holden threatened to
'publicly dissent' if a children's book were honoured, and Anne
Widdecombe chimed in to say that such a shocking choice would bring
contempt and ridicule to the entire nation. On the other side, A.N.
Wilson grumbled that Beowulf was 'a boring book about dragons.' 
BSFA Awards shortlist: NOVELThigMOO by
Eugene Byrne, Silver Screen by Justina Robson, Children of
God by Mary Doria Russell, Headlong by Simon Ings, The
Sky Road by Ken MacLeod. SHORT (all Interzone)
'Gorillagram' by Tony Ballantyne (#139), 'Hunting the Slarque' by Eric
Brown (#141), 'Malignos' by Richard Calder (#144), 'The Lady MacBeth
Blues' by Stephen Dedman (#148), 'White Dog' by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
(#142). ARTWORKThe Dream Archipelago by Jim
Burns, Darwinia by Jim Burns, Interzone 142 by Dominic
Harman, Silver Screen by Steve Stone. Dreaming Down
Under/Interzone 146 by Nick Stathopoulos. [CH] Winners to be
announced at 2Kon, 23 April.

As
Others See Us. More merry litcrit snobbery was heard on BBC
Radio 4's A Good Read (11 Jan), as Frederick Raphael and others
struggled to define Ronald Wright's A Scientific Romance as
non-sf. No matter that its protagonist uses the Wellsian time machine to
seek a future remedy for incurable disease, encountering long-term
effects of global warming: the panel decreed that this couldn't be sf,
because they liked the book and – Raphael's clincher – it wasn't
written in the future tense.

Random
Fandom.Paul Beardsley is commended by Big Chief
I-Spy: 'This week in Havant, Hampshire, I spotted a car (big and white,
possibly a Mercedes) with the personalized number plate "5LAN".
I can't imagine it wasn't a reference to Mr van Vogt's famed
creation.'  Robbie Bourget invites submissions for the
annual Ken McIntyre award for art in British fanzines. Artists/editors
not attending 2Kon can send original art plus the relevant fanzine (or a
copy of the page, with title/date/editor details) to her: 8 Warren
Close, Langley, Slough, Berks, SL3 7UA. Artists wanting to exhibit at
2Kon should tell Robbie as early as possible. Other
unattributable but irate sources reckon that 'the numbskull committee'
has allocated far too little art show space and that Robbie 'needs all
the ammunition she can get to fight for a bigger room(s).' Current
usable space, already mostly booked, is barely larger than tiny
Novacon's art show.  Harry Payne professes bafflement at
Anne McCaffrey's blurb for Ricardo Pinto's The Chosen: '"Pinto
writes with an almost Donaldsonian/Feistian grip." How, pray, does
one acquire an almost Donaldsonian/Feistian grip? Is it to be found on
the shelves of B&Q, or is it a free gift when one subscribes to the
Gaiman/Pratchett Idea of the Month Club?' (A Donaldsonian grip is of
course a clench. Dunno about a Feistian one.)  Simo
contends that NASA press releases are spellchecked by the same people
who build their Mars probes: 'Following over a year of training,
astronaut candidates can become full-fledged astronuts ...' He
relentlessly continues with 'my favourite cock-up from a movie
positively stuffed with vertical male chickens, Supernova
(finally released after a year on the shelf). The crew of a spaceship
receive a distress call from "3,300 light years away."
Audience (but not, apparently, film-makers) think, "Well, it's a
bit too late to do anything about it now...."' I am reminded of
Colin Kapp's The Patterns of Chaos, featuring a succession of
planet-busting hellbombs which have been travelling between galaxies for
six hundred million years and are aimed with some precision at the
hero.

R.I.P.Marc Davis, one of the 'nine old men' of classic Disney
animation, died on 12 January at age 86. [PB]  Sybil DeVore,
wife of long-time fan, book dealer and awards chronicler Howard DeVore,
died on 8 January after long illness. [CP]  Peter Kuczka
(1923-1999), influential Hungarian sf critic and publisher, died on 3
December. [AN]  Gil Kane (1926-2000), still-active comics
artist best known for 50s/60s 'Silver Age' work on Green Lantern
and Atom, died of cancer on 31 January. He was 73. [TG] 
Don Martin, who came to fame as a zany cartoonist in Mad
magazine's heyday, died of cancer on 6 January at age 68. [PB] He
illustrated several sf stories for Galaxy in the 50s; after
falling out with Mad in 1987, he worked for its rival Cracked.
 Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000), whose bestselling
Aubrey/Maturin sea stories caught the imaginations of sf fans and were
much discussed in fandom, died on 2 January aged 85. (One of Walt
Willis's 1950s Nebula columns had discussed the similar fannish
appeal of C.S. Forester.)  Mae Strelkov, long-time fan
celebrated for creating much treasurable artwork with the old fannish
technology of coloured hecto inks, died on 27 January in Argentina. [NB]
She had suffered a stroke last September.

Thog's
Transitive Masterclass. 'Without transition, his body passed
from movement to poised stillness ...' 'Without transition, he shifted
into his emergency mode – the state of whetted creative concentration
on which his reputation rested ...' 'Almost without transition, however,
his scars had gone as pale as his face ...' (all Stephen R. Donaldson,
The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, 1991) [TW]

Fanfundery.Ron Bennett has an attic stash of his 1958 TAFF trip report Colonial
Excursion (1961; 93pp with many Atom cartoons): £5 to him or
$7.50 US to Andrew R. Bennett. 36 Harlow Park Cres, Harrogate, N Yorks,
HG2 0AW.  New Routes in America, the newly published
report of Peter Roberts's 1977 TAFF trip, is still available from Ansible
at a mere £6. 'Made me laugh so much my glasses steamed up ... highly
recommended' – Chris Priest. All proceeds to TAFF. A parcel of
copies is currently travelling by slow boat to Aussie distributor Irwin
Hirsh.

Hazel's
Language Lessons. As they say among the Pintupi Aborigines of
the Western Australian Desert: nginyiwarrarringu, n., a sudden
fear that leads one to stand up to see what caused it. [TB]

Dept
of Urology ... this being what John Grant's spellchecker keeps
suggesting for 'ufology'. David Hines reports: 'Long-time
Langford fan Whitley Strieber was roundly humiliated on the January 18th
"Kirk, Mark, and Lopez Morning Show" on 97.9 FM in Baltimore,
MD. Strieber called in to promote his new book, The Coming Global
Superstorm (co-authored with conspiracy maven Art Bell), the thesis
of which is that "Earth's climate works like a rubber band being
stretched and suddenly released" (yes, really), and that said
rubber band is getting ready to snap back with enough force to blow off
a finger or two. A highlight: when one disk jockey read off a list of
Strieber's wildly alarmist and (need this be said?) unsubstantiated
claims, Strieber snapped back, accusing the DJs of being deliberately
inflammatory, and trying to make him look foolish by taking him out of
context. On the contrary, they replied – they were reading directly
from Strieber's own press kit.'

Outraged
Letters.Simon R. Green's cold-turkey cure failed, as
usual: 'I know I promised to Never Ever write another Deathstalker novel
again, but ... my publishers found my weak spot. They offered me money.
Quite a lot of money, actually.' The bastards!  Perry
Middlemiss conveys Aussiecon's response to a certain author's
'Swanwicik' Hugo-inscription grumble: 'Michael Swanwick is getting a new
award (in exchange for his old one) at Boskone. Stephen Boucher will be
hand-delivering it. Mr Swanwick is aware of this fact.'  Michael
Swanwick was busy brooding on too many death notices in Ansible,
which 'reminded me of SF back when I made my first sale in 1980 and Locus
didn't have an obituary page because nobody ever died. It was like the
village in Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was so
small and obscure that Death couldn't find it. Then one person died, and
everybody took it as permission to follow. Alas.'

Twenty
Years Ago.Bob Shaw implausibly confessed to Ansible:
'I have been writing to fan editors for many years, but this is the
first time I have ever read a fanzine....' Leigh Edmonds and Valma
Brown rejoiced: 'We've only been married a week and it seems like
years.' A French Ufologist rumbled me, with help from Ian
Watson: 'Unless you prove me the contrary, I consider your book is a
Hoax.' (all Ansible 6, Feb 1980)

Thog's
Masterclass.Dept of Paws for Thought: 'Only Lily
could tell there was more to it, because whatever was haunting the back
of his eyes made a trail of uneasy paw prints up her own spine.'
(Charles de Lint, Someplace to be Flying, 1998) [PB]  '"Are
either of you aware of the fact that there's nothing between us and the
pole to break the wind but an occasional stray reindeer?"' (David
Eddings, Castle of Wizardry, 1984) [RP]  Dept of Sound
Effects: 'From out of the surrounding hills came a ringing silence
that was only deepened by the plodding of the pack-ponies' hooves on the
turf and the flirting of their tails against their sides.' (Susan Price,
The Sterkarm Handshake, 1998) [BA] 'The horse's fall had the
sound of a bag filled with rocks and lamp oil, landing beside him and
rolling over his legs.' (Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon,
1999) [GW]  Dept of Non-Euclidean Geometry: 'She wore a
thin metal necklet of some sort, as well, and he scrutinised it with
almost equal curiosity. It supported a plastic cube a half-inch square
and a quarter-inch thick.' (David Weber, The Apocalypse Troll,
1998) [MR]  'Although the project would ultimately be aborted,
this represented the moment that Star Trek: Phase II was born.'
(Ed Gross, SFX #61) [AO]

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FTP? People, though not many of them, said they'd like the
plain ASCII text archive of Ansible and its FTP availability to
be continued. Oh, all right then. A special and reverential thumbing of
the nose to Bob Devney: 'Mark me down as one who needs not FTP
– I get instead the CORRECTLY SPELLED edition of Joseph Nicholas's
zine.'

NESFA voted to secure the domain name nesfa.com to add to its
existing nesfa.org, but grumpily had to pay $200 to a 'cybersquatter'
who'd registered the name in hope of profitable resale. (Instant
Message 658)